WL council on tight deadline to redistrict

This makes the third consecutive year West Lafayette reconfigured its City Council districts, but this year's effort is expected to stand until 2022, after redistricting to adjust for the 2020 Census.

Changing to a Class 2 city, which the council approved Tuesday, means council members must again redistrict. This time around, they don't have the luxury of months, as they did in 2012 and 2013. They have only weeks.

No problem, at-large City Councilman Steve Dietrich said.

He already distributed to council members a proposed redistricting map, and when the post-annexation Census numbers come in, they can tweak the lines, City Attorney Eric Burns said.

"It's not going to have a whole lot of fireworks or excitement," Mayor John Dennis said, noting that his role as chief executive means he doesn't have a say in the process. "There isn't a lot of leeway for political manipulation. The guidelines are pretty basic."

The top priority is making sure each of the council's six new districts have about the same number of people, based on population, Burns said. In the end, the city's roughly 42,000 people will be divided into six districts of about 7,000 people, Burns said. The change to a Class 2 city also means that the council will go from two at-large seats to three, and all West Side voters can cast a ballot for at-large council representatives.

Dietrich's proposed redistricting map pretty much hits the equal representation mark, except that he inadvertently proposed a map that would cut 1st District Councilman Nick DeBoer out of his district. That will be fixed, Dietrich said.

There are misconceptions about the criteria. For example, some might think redistricting was based on registered voters. It isn't. Redistricting is based on population, Burns said.

The drawback to this formula is that one district — and likely two after redistricting, according to Burns — is comprised largely of Purdue University students, who typically are not active in local elections.

In 2011, for example, former 1st District Councilman Eddie VanBogaert won his seat by capturing 38 of the 60 votes cast in his race.

"Unfortunately, that's what history has shown to be the fact," Dennis said of students' low participation in local elections. "Hopefully we can get that to change. One of our major tenets of annexation was to encourage student participation in the community, in local government ... and hopefully to stay in the community after graduation."

Dietrich, however, doesn't believe redistricting will make much difference, explaining that proposed 1st District still will be mostly students and the proposed 2nd District will remain New Chauncey, another area heavily populated with students.

Still, council members are up against deadline, and they do not have the post-annexation Census numbers yet.

Redistricting must be completed before the end of October. State law prescribes that cities changing classifications must complete redistricting at least one year before the next municipal general elections, which is Nov. 3, 2015.

When the official numbers arrive, Dietrich and other council members will have work sessions to tweak the proposed map. Meanwhile, the Tippecanoe County Area Plan Commission also will work on a proposed redistricting map that conforms to the criteria. That will give council members a choice, Dietrich said.

At this point, Dietrich believes that the first of two readings on the redistricting ordinance will be at the council's Oct. 6 meeting. The council will have a special meeting later in October for the second approval.

The council could suspend the rules and pass the redistricting ordinance in two readings at the Oct. 6 meeting, but Dietrich said that is unlikely.

"I think the idea is to allow citizens to give feedback," Dietrich said.

Either way, Dietrich, Burns and Dennis all believe the deadline will be met and the 2015 municipal elections will look noticeably different than the 2011 races.

There will be six council district races and three at-large races instead of five districts and two at-large seats. Voters will select a city clerk instead of a clerk-treasurer.

Whoever is elected mayor in 2015 will have to appoint a city controller to shepherd finances, and the next mayor will not preside over meetings, such as those for the council and board of works.